Eli, no!

Eli, no! by Katie Kirk is a just right book for any classroom.  Emerging readers will love it for the patterned text and how easily they can join in for a shared reading.  Older readers will love the character Eli and find ideas for writing.  I think this is my new favorite dog book.

The opening line lets you know this book is going to full of adventure.  "Eli is a good dog, but sometimes he is bad."  The word sometimes lets the reader know there's more to come and possibly that more to come isn't so great for Eli.  The story is told in a serious of questions showing scenarios of when the narrator might be made at Eli, always with the same response - "Eli, no!"  What a great way to see our sight word no in print.  What a great way to use inflection as a reader and identify exclamation marks.  

I think this book tugs at  my heart a bit because Eli is a brown dog.  I have a brown dog.  My dog Annie has moments like Eli where she eats too much food, where she tries to jump on a bed, or makes a fuss.  In the end we always love our Annie and her adventures give us stories to talk about and tell.  Check this book out to see if Eli's family feels the same.